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THE 






WHIGS OF Massachusetts. 



WILLIAM S. APPLETON. 


n 


Read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at 
THE Meeting of March 11,1897, and Reprinted 
FROM THE Proceedings. 



CAMBRIDGE: 

JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
Saniijersttg 

1897. 






^ 4 I ' 

Jh^333 ' 

. /Vl^yAO 






THE WHIGS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 


I HAVE undertaken, with some hesitation, to put together a 
few thoughts on the subject of the Whigs of Massachusetts, 
particular!}^ in the years between 1840 and 1850; and I take 
as a sort of text some words from a letter of Nathan Appleton 
to Charles Sumner, dated 4 September, 1848 : “ I have regret¬ 
ted your course the last two years. But more in sorrow than 
in anger.” I may be considered to labor under a disadvantage 
in having been only a boy even at the later date, 1850. But 
there are circumstances which perhaps go far to offset this 
disadvantage, in personal and family relations. My father, 
Nathan Appleton, was at this time one of the leaders among the 
older Whigs in the State, whose words were heard with atten¬ 
tion, and whose counsels were received with respect. Robert 
C. Winthrop was a friend of my father, perhaps as intimate as 
is ever the case where a difference of thirty years exists, and 
Winthrop’s second wife was a dearly loved own cousin of my 
mother. I remember being often at their house in Pemberton 
Square, and feeling perfectly at home there ; and Mr. Winthrop’s 
name still lingers in my memory with the familiar title of 
Colonel, derived from his service on the staff of Governor 
Everett. The father of Charles Sumner was, except in the 
eye of the law and the genealogist, also an own cousin of my 
mother; and the irregularity of his birth was as completely 
ignored by all the Sumner family as if it never existed. Charles 
Sumner was, till 1846, a most welcome and beloved guest in my 
father’s house, though of his presence there I am sorry to say 
I have no definite recollection. 



4 


These facts are my reason and my excuse for venturing to 
offer some views on the Whigs of my boyhood, especially as to 
their personal relations. Mr. Pierce has drawn, with great 
skill and fairness, the sad picture of the breaking of social ties, 
but it did not come within the scope of his work to consider 
the hearts of those from whom Sumner separated himself. He 
voluntarily caused the separation, from motives which I have 
no thought of questioning or criticising. They are undoubt¬ 
edly considered to do him honor. But it was not in human 
nature, as we know it, for those whom he left to have acted 
otherwise than as they did, and I presume that no one blames 
them for having resented Sumner’s acts and words. 

The Whig party existed under that name for a little less 
than the quarter century between 1830 and 1855. It was 
successful in only two presidential elections, — 1840 and 1848 ; 
and the former of these, seemingly a triumph, was the barren- 
est sort of victory. The laurels turned to the bitterest ashes. 
It only had complete control of the national government. Pres¬ 
ident, Senate, and House of Representatives, for the month’s 
presidency of William Henry Harrison. During the next 
twenty-three months its nominal rule was of the most uncer¬ 
tain kind, and never after did it hold more than two of the 
three co-ordinate branches of the American Parliament. It 
was strong in several States, among which Massachusetts stood 
high, — one of the faithful four which voted against Pierce in 
1852. In 1840 it was at first hopeful of victory, and then 
flushed with the victory it had won. 

At that time among the older Whigs, leaders of the party, 
more particularly in Eastern Massachusetts, were Webster, 
Davis, Lincoln, Gorham, Lawrence, Everett, and my father, 
few of whom, if any, were really old men. Adams, Winthrop, 
Hillard, Curtis, Sumner, and Motley were the leaders of a group 
of young men, to whom the elders looked for their successors, 
who should perpetuate all that was good and honorable in the 
record of the party, and who should carry it on to greater good 
and higher honor in the future. In the case of the three men 
of whom I first spoke, Nathan Appleton on one side, Winthrop 
and Sumner on the other, a stronger feeling existed, and polit¬ 
ical sympathy and pride were mingled with deep personal 
admiration and affection. A few years earlier Phillips would 
have held a place second to none of the younger men. And 


when Phillips was joined by Adams and Sumner, the older 
men had reason for anxious thought and grief. The personal 
separation had come, even if political prospects seemed as yet 
undimmed; and it is the personal separation which I have most 
in mind, and which I wish to emphasize. Sumner might sadly 
say, “ There was a time when I was welcome at almost every 
house within two miles of us, but now hardly any are open to 
me.” But the occupants of those houses might say with equal 
or greater sadness, “ There was a time when Charles Sumner 
w^as gladly welcomed here as guest, but he has left us.” It 
may be that those whose life was less in the future than the 
past were the more to be pitied. 

The Whigs of Massachusetts did not approve of slavery; on 
the contrary, many of them had denounced it in the strongest 
terms, and would gladly have seen its end. But they looked 
on it as an unavoidable condition of the existence of the Union, 
which seemed to them worthy of almost every kind of sacri¬ 
fice. In comparison with its preservation the rights of the 
black race seemed small indeed, and might be left to the wis¬ 
dom of a Divine Providence, which should turn the Southern 
States to a better way.^ 

In such circumstances Charles Sumner announced that he 
could no longer act with the Whig party, and condemned its 
leaders and their acts in very strong words. His great abilities 
and fine qualities were not accompanied by an appreciation 
of the force of the English language. Small wonder then 
that Winthrop, his as yet more successful contemporary, broke 
forth in words of bitter indignation. Small wonder that an 
older man wrote, “ I have regretted your course the last two 
years. But more in sorrow than in anger.” My father felt 
that their deep friendship and familiar intercourse had come to 
a full stop. Neither Winthrop nor Appleton were man, had he 
acted otherwise than as he did. Fortunate were they, to whom 
political antagonism was as nothing in comparison with other 
sympathies. Prescott among his books was almost to be en- 

1 Nathan Appleton wrote in 1851 : “ His [Sumner’s] views on the slavery ques¬ 
tion if adopted by the people of the north will certainly lead to a dissolution 
of the Union, and nearly as certainly to a civil war & bloodshed, & with great 
probability to a general massacre of the blacks. ... So much for slavery & 
negrodom, I prefer to leave them to the wise God who made them rather than ^ 
to excite our passions, and perhaps cut our throats, about a matter which so little 
concerns ourselves.” 


6 


vied; one would say wholly to be envied, but for his sad phys¬ 
ical infirmity. He could enjoy equally the friendship of Ticknor 
on the one hand, and of Sumner on the other. But not to 
many was such good fortune given. 

The Whig party of Massachusetts was rent in twain. Vic¬ 
torious later in 1852 and 1853, these successes were but the 
last struggles of the dying body. But when it fell, Massachu¬ 
setts fell a long way with it. Neither the Commonwealth nor 
the Whigs claimed to be omniscient; but both fell at the blow 
— shall we say the foul blow ? — of a party which lives in his¬ 
tory under the name of Know Nothing. Massachusetts rose 
again ; the Whig party could not. With whatever of merit it 
may claim, with whatever of fault it would gladly disown, its 
course was run, its record was closed. 

But in 1861 where were the survivors of the Whigs of Mas¬ 
sachusetts? I think we can understand what their feelings 
must have been. Grief and astoundment must have contended 
for the mastery, — grief at the approach of that which they had 
devoted their lives to avert; astoundment that such madness 
had seized such numbers, and that their old friends at the 
South were powerless for good, if not even active for harm. 
But with, perhaps, no exception the Whigs of Massachusetts 
were among the most loyal of citizens. The addresses of 
Everett and Winthrop, on presenting flags respectively to the 
Twelfth and Twenty-second Regiments of Massachusetts Vol¬ 
unteer Infantry, were not surpassed for lofty patriotism. Right 
by the side of Webster’s words, “Not a stripe erased or pol¬ 
luted, nor a single star obscured,” we may put, “ A Star for 
every State, and a State for every Star.” My father, lying on 
his bed of death, could do nothing but contribute freely of his 
abundant means. His cousin William Appleton, — perhaps, 
except Crittenden, the last Whig in public life, — victorious 
over Burlingame the previous autumn, at the age of seventy- 
four, resumed his old seat in the House of Representatives at 
the extra session of July, and without hesitation gave his vote 
for Galusha A. Grow as Speaker. Devoting all his energies to 
his work on the Committee of Ways and Means in the heat of 
a Washington summer, he returned home only to resign his 
seat, and in a few months to die of simple physical exhaustion, 
caused by his faithful labors. 

I have written these words not by way of vindication of the 


7 


old Whigs of Massachusetts, for they need no vindication, and 
I have less than no claim to be their vindicator. But I have 
long felt that some such statement as I have tried to make 
ought to be made, and I know not where to find it. It hardly 
lay in the province of the biographer of Webster or Lawrence ; 
still less in that of the biographer of Sumner. There is a sug¬ 
gestion of some such tribute in Dana’s Address on the Life 
and Services of Everett. The Whigs were faithful to their 
duty as they saw it, and to their country, for they loved it. 
But few, very few, so far as I know, are the words which have 
been spoken or written to do them honor. I have tried to do 
something to this end, without injustice to those who left them. 
Would that the pleasant duty had fallen into abler hands! 


^ 6 82 _ 

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